


The Bluths Celebrate Birthdays

by buddyhollybenhur



Series: the bluth family is trying their best [2]
Category: Arrested Development
Genre: Birthday, Family Fluff, Family Shenanigans, Gen, Tags will be updated, the bluths being the bluths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:21:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24262000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buddyhollybenhur/pseuds/buddyhollybenhur
Summary: BIRTHDAYS/BIRTH YEARS FOR THE BLUTHS (mix of canon and my own headcanons)LUCILLE- December 21, 1931GEORGE SR- December 4th, 1930GOB- November 19, 1967MICHAEL & LINDSAY- June 15, 1969BUSTER- January 29, 1973GEORGE MICHAEL- March 3, 1990MAEBY- September 22, 1990
Relationships: Byron "Buster" Bluth & George Oscar "Gob" Bluth & Michael Bluth & Lindsay Bluth Funke, George Bluth Sr./Lucille Bluth, George Michael Bluth & Maeby Funke, Lindsay Bluth Funke/Tobias Funke
Series: the bluth family is trying their best [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1751236
Comments: 7
Kudos: 15





	The Bluths Celebrate Birthdays

**Author's Note:**

> BIRTHDAYS/BIRTH YEARS FOR THE BLUTHS (mix of canon and my own headcanons)
> 
> LUCILLE- December 21, 1931  
> GEORGE SR- December 4th, 1930  
> GOB- November 19, 1967  
> MICHAEL & LINDSAY- June 15, 1969  
> BUSTER- January 29, 1973  
> GEORGE MICHAEL- March 3, 1990  
> MAEBY- September 22, 1990

The Bluth cousins have been on summer vacation for a week. Their family has promised them various activities to occupy their time, ranging from incredibly fun (yacht-driving lessons with Gob) to incredibly boring (working at the banana stand under Michael’s supervision) to the out-of-the-question (spending time with Gangy when Buster is on a date with Lucille 2 and visiting Pop-Pop in prison). 

Right now, however, they’re exercising their right to stay up past Michael’s school-year curfew. It’s 11pm on a Friday night, and Michael bid them a good night an hour ago, and Maeby’s mother is out on the town and her father is waiting obsessively outside a Blue Man Group performance. Maeby herself is just kind of hanging out, reading a magazine. Above her, her cousin George Michael mutters “Oh, wow, I forgot to flip my calendar to June,” and then he quietly yelps. 

“Y’okay?” she asks absentmindedly. He just tosses his Space Travel calendar down to her, and she sees two events for June- GRADUATION and DAD B-DAY (AND AL). Graduation was a week ago, but DAD B-DAY is… the day after tomorrow. Which means that her mother’s birthday is also the day after tomorrow. 

Oh. 

“I can’t believe I forgot,” George Michael frets anxiously. She sighs, throws the magazine across the room, and stands up to stick her head over the side of his bunk. 

“Look, tomorrow your dad is at work, so we’ll just get our money and Uncle Gob can take us to the mall. You think he has a gift for either of them?”

“Probably not,” he says. 

She nods, and then jumps back down to her own bed. “Mind if I turn the lights out?”

“No…” she hears him say, so she crosses the room to shut off the lights and shut the doors. George Michael’s breathing evens out, and soon she falls asleep too. 

In the few months they’ve lived together, the Bluth family has adapted and evolved. Everybody’s formed little routines and rituals around each other: Michael makes coffee for the whole house when he wakes up. Tobias is usually awake to see people off on weekdays and make sure they’re all good. Lindsay always makes an extra sandwich or ice-cream-sundae or bowl of pasta for whoever wants it when she cooks. And Maeby and George Michael wait for the other person to wake up before they head out to face the family together.

So Maeby wakes up with the sun and lays there, staring at the underneath of her cousin’s mattress until she hears him start to shuffle around and then ask “Are you there, Maeby?”

“Yeah.”

“Kay.”

It isn’t like they have school or anything, so they make no move to get out of bed. Maeby thinks how nice it is to wake up and know there’s someone  _ right there _ \- if she was in Boston right now, she would have woken up in a bigger room and a comfier bed and the knowledge that Mom was out running errands or shopping and Daddy was at work, and then she would have eaten something sugary and unhealthy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But in Newport Beach, she hears George Michael come down the little ladder and she hops out of bed too, and they head down the spiraling staircase to face the day and their family, and whatever new thing is going to be thrown at them. 

In true Bluth fashion, there are three notes on company stationery on the counter. 

_ Gone to the office, sorry buddy! Late night so don’t expect me for dinner. -Michael Bluth _

_ On a date (hopefully) so don’t wait up! -Lindsay Bluth _

_ Audition w/ CW so plz dont wait 4 me -Tobias  _

Maeby looks at George Michael. “That was… kind of a freebie. Let’s go wake up Uncle Gob.” This is another thing they do, they wake up Uncle Gob. Because there’s nobody to bother- Buster is back in his room at the Balboa Towers- they stampede up the stairs. Once they reach their uncle’s room, they quietly open the door. Gob is laying with blankets pushed to the side in his boxers and an undershirt- the short shorts really reinforce how absurdly long and lanky he is- and George Michael politely flicks the lights on and off. It has no effect, so Maeby runs at him and smacks a pillow into his face. That does the trick. 

“Michael- Lindsay- oh, you guys,” Gob says, blinking and turning on the touch lamp on his bedside table. “Whazzup?”

“Take us to the mall?” Maeby says, batting her eyelashes. 

“Please,” George Michael adds. “We need presents for Dad and Aunt Lindsay’s birthday tomorrow.”

“Everyone at work,” Gob kind of asks, sitting up. 

“Yeah.”

“Mm-kay… okay, get dressed and eat breakfast and I can take you.”

Maeby toasts three bagels while her cousin gets dressed in their room, and then he butters them and puts cream cheese on while she pulls on a t-shirt and jean shorts. 

She hears a distant “Gangy?” from downstairs, followed by “Actually, Uncle Buster, that’s for Uncle Gob-” so she braids her hair while she runs down the stairs and sure enough, there’s Gangy. And Buster, who is eating the bagel they toasted for Gob. 

“Hi,” she says. Family members breaking and entering is also nothing new. 

“I wanted to invite your parents to a birthday party I’m throwing them,” her grandma says. “But apparently they’re too busy with work and romance to take care of their children, just leaving them all alone with nobody to take care of them.”

“Uncle Gob is here-” George Michael says awkwardly. 

“Like I said. Nobody to take care of you,” Gangy says. “Anyways, I can just stop by the office. Buster?”

“Bye, guys,” their uncle says. “See you at the par-ty!” 

George Michael toasts another bagel. 

Gob looks more awake when he comes down the stairs in an honest-to-god silk shirt. “I was dressed five minutes ago but I heard my mother,” he explains. “Come on, we can take the stair car.”

Because they are in the stair car it takes forty-five minutes to get to the mall, and they all three split up. Maeby goes for jewelry because her mother cannot resist jewelry. However, the salesperson is extremely suspicious of her, and she decided to not give them her business as she is escorted out of the store by security. 

She wanders over to a men's clothing store where George Michael is looking at ties. 

“Boo!” she says, and he yelps and then looks around in embarrassment. “Don’t… don’t do that…”

“Sorry,” she says, not sorry at all. “Is that what you’re getting your dad?”

“Um, yeah,” he says. It’s a nice tie, light blue and covered in little flowers. “I guess, he just has a lot of ties that are kind of boring, and this one is kind of colorful and fun. I don't know.”

“I like it,” she tells him, and they pay for the tie and get it gift-wrapped. Then Maeby reads the mall map and drags her cousin towards a resale store with designer women’s clothing. Then she just buys the most expensive thing she can: a shiny gold dress with spaghetti straps. Her mother will love it. The store has no gift-wrapping services but George Michael knows where they can buy wrapping paper. However they’re broke, so they have to find their Uncle Gob. 

Gob is hard to find, though. “If his disappearing act was this good in his shows he’d sell out the Gothic castle,” Maeby grumbles, earning a short laugh from George Michael. 

Then she sees an intercom microphone at customer services, and sprints over and jumps the counter. 

“Maeby-” George Michael says, but she’s already grabbed the microphone. 

“GOB BLUTH PLEASE COME GET YOUR KIDS AT THE FOOD COURT THANKS LOVE YOU!” she yells into it, enjoying how much louder she is over the speakers around the mall. George Michael looks torn between grabbing her arm and running away, and pretending he doesn’t know her. 

Gob meets them at the food court where they’re sharing a giant cookie. “You guys good?” he asks. 

“Yeah, we need you to buy us some wrapping paper though.”

“Already on it.” he lifts up some silver wrapping paper, along with two square packages. “Not telling you what I got them, by the way.”

“Us neither,” Maeby says.

Gob lets them get In-N-Out on the way home, and then he takes them to the yacht. “We can wrap the presents and keep them here. Lindsay likes to poke around for her gifts early,” he explains. 

They stow the gifts in a worryingly empty lifejacket compartment and Gob promises to bring them all to the party the next day. 

\--

Sunday, the day of the party, is sunny and warm. They all take the day off of work to congregate at Balboa Towers, and on the way in they’re intercepted by Lucille Austero who kisses the twins on their cheeks and tells them they’ve grown so much. Lindsay and Michael smile identical smiles and wipe the lipstick off of their cheeks in simultaneous swipes. 

Lucille Bluth greets them with over the top hugs and the same cheek kiss that leaves brownish lipstick on everybody’s faces. Buster is sitting in the living room in a sweater that is way too hot for June and Pop-Pop’s face is paused on the TV. 

They wait on Gob who had to detour, and he hands the kids’ gifts to them before settling himself in a chair and kicking his legs over the side. 

They have to watch the video from prison. Maeby pretends to fall asleep on George Michael’s shoulder as their grandpa chatters on about the twins. Then the video ends and Gangy hands over two big bags to the birthday boy and girl. 

Uncle Michael gets a book set that he looks genuinely interested in, and Lindsay gets a subscription box with clothes in it that will be delivered to the model home every month for the next year. Maeby likes that- the gift is cool, and she can steal some of those clothes, but they’ll be here for a year at least. 

Gob has gotten Lindsay a necklace and Uncle Michael a Da Vinci clock that he’s impressed by and scared he’ll break, and Buster got them each a gift card to the mall. Both parents are pleased with the gifts from their children, and the tie is put on immediately even though it clashes with Michael’s suit. 

Lupe made two cakes, which is what’s been done for the last thirty years of birthdays in the Bluth family. One is chocolate with chocolate frosting, one is a carrot with cream cheese. The Bluths mill around, eating cake and, in the case of Lucille and Gob. drinking. 

Nobody storms out and nobody threatens to disown anybody, which makes it one of the better Bluth parties. 

**Author's Note:**

> obviously there was the lindsay-is-adopted reveal at the end of s3 but i don't really accept the last two seasons as canon for a variety of reasons (except bi gob ofc) and i don't really like the adopted thing either? idk, i just think it screws up the family dynamics too much and would have so many lasting issues, and i feel like the only reason they did it was to make george michael and maeby's relationship less controversial. i don't plan on writing any gm/m in this series other than hints of george michael's crush because the family as a family is the important thing to me here, so ther's no problems with me making lindsay lucille and george's bio kid!
> 
> tl;dr while the s3 finale revealed that lindsay was adopted, i'm ignoring that for a variety of reasons. she's a biological bluth here and was born a short while after michael. no george michael/maeby in this series either for that reason (although i really have no issues with the ship itself, i just don't want to write it)


End file.
